How Do You Procrastinate?

Dear Reader,

I'm working on the script for my short film, tentatively titled "Slack-Anon" and I'm curious to know how you idle away your days? How do you slack off? How do you procrastinate? If you're game, please post a comment with a list of your favorite thumb-twiddlers.
Thanks,

Your Scribe

Worst Dialect Ever OR Germans in Space

So me and some friends went to Star Trek the Tour today and geeked out hardcore. The coolest part of our adventure was getting to take photos on the bridge of The USS Enterprise, both original Star Trek and Next Generation. Unlike most trekkies who boarded the ship and stared blankly at the camera, we got very much into creating scenes. The most successful of which was a bar brawl, with me as a dispassionate captain forced to deal with crew members punching and choking each other on the com stations.

In addition to the series of super dorky stills, we got to shoot a video where we were the bad guys and read the corny star trek villain lines. We of course decided to take inspiration from the "Sprockets" SNL sketch and turn our klingons into a series of baddies from the German 80's disco scene. The first take was brilliant, however that got lost - so what you see below is the second lesser take. And perhaps the most ham-handed but worst German accent known to man, provided by yours truly.

Fishing For Ideas

Curiously enough, the first, and single most important step in creating a short film is coming up with a solid story. So far I am grasping at straws. Perhaps I should take up transcendental meditation, a la David Lynch:



How does he make his hair do that? It's been perfectly quaffed for over 30 years now.

Post #100: I'm Making a Movie

The creative career co-op at Sage is all about setting ambitious goals that you can be passionate about. While my search for an agent is important - it's just not that shiny a goal.

My goal for the next 8 weeks:·

It is April 17, 2008 and I have just finished mailing the last copy of my broadcast quality short film to my actors. I am extremely proud of how the film turned out and I’m excited to submit it to festivals, I know that it will be accepted and win.

In all honesty it's a daunting goal. I've never participated in a broadcast quality project, let alone produced one. However, I need to get some work on film that I can feel proud to include in my reel.

Just discussing this project with friends and colleagues has already created a lot of energy. I'm hoping that energy will translate into a quality project.

Potential complication: budget = $0.

PS: Does anyone have a great short film script laying around that's begging to be produced? Ideally with a lead-ish role for me. Barring that: any interesting stories that would make good short subjects?

OurStage.com - Truly Democratic Online Video?

After my buddy prince won $5,000 for wearing his boxer-briefs on the internet, I decided that perhaps there was something to these online video contests. I started following a blog that lists all of the upcoming video contests, and one of them was for OurStage.com. They've got an ongoing contest with a $5,000 prize that is awarded every month. All you have to do is submit a video that you've created and leave the judging up to the world.

If you want, you can watch my animated film "Make Someone Happy" and take a look at the competition here.

OurStage.com has an interesting voting model. Unlike YouTube where any Tom, Dick, or Harry can have their friends vote for their video - OurStage pits random videos against each other in a creative cage match, the likes of which haven't been seen since the 1988 battle between the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and My Little Pony at Madison Square Garden.

Assuming OurStage.com gains a viewership this could really ensure that the cream rises to the top. On the other hand, it could just mean that truly mediocre, middle of the road material that everyone likes pretty well is what eventually wins out. I suppose we'll find out soon enough.

To see my inspiration for getting involved in this silliness, watch Prince be poor:

My Doppelganger Is Starring With Robert Downey Jr.

Here I am browsing facebook at 4am when I stumble upon THIS:

I thought I was looking at a picture of me. But no, it's another actor who just happens to look a lot like me who's playing smart quirky roles of the variety I would like to play. I think there are couple ways that this can work where I still have a film acting career. 1) This movie takes off, this kid's career skyrockets and eventually folks start asking for an "Anton Yelchin Type" in the breakdowns - or I'm cast as his older brother. 2) This film tanks, Anton's career ends now - and no one remembers him - leaving a slot for me to play the roles he would otherwise get.

For comparison purposes, here's a photo of me:

Read "Tanner's Cove" on my other blog: Romantic Dramedy

Hello All. I've just posted a short story over at my other blog: Romantic Dramedy. This is pretty much my first short story since I wrote "Bessie: the Magical Flying Sea, Land, and Air Cow" for my 7th grade English class. Feel free to leave comments with praise or thinly veiled threats.